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Thursday, April 24, 2014

2014 NBA AWARDS: WHO SHOULD BE THE MVP ACCORDING TO STATISTICS?

This is the first of my two articles
about the 2014 NBA AWARDS using statistics.

Today, we will focus on “who
should be the MVP” before looking at the “the All-NBA teams / All-Defensive
teams”.

A. 2014 MVP.

The widely accepted definition of
the National Basketball Association Most Valuable Player (MVP) is an award
given to the best performing player of the season, usually within one of the
best team of the regular season.

Accordingly, I screened the 10
best players of the regular season in 5 different sets of statistics focused
mainly on attack and efficiency [except for my statistic (A)] (see my articles for February and March for the most
effective players during these months).

I then
screened (B) efficiency in term of plus/minus net points for players while
they were on the floor, (C) most plus/minus points par 48 minutes while the
player was on the floor, (D) players with the most triple-double, and I ended
with a focus on (E) the most efficient shooters (see my article on the best efficient shooters ever in NBA history in the regular season). For these
4 statistics, there are 10 points for the first
player to 1 for the 10th.

Finally, there are
points (F) for the position of every team from +15 (San Antonio which is the
leader of the regular season) to -14 for the last (Milwaukee).

According to my benchmark of six
statistics, Kevin Durant should be the MVP of the 2014 regular season. Joakim
Noah, the defensive player of the year, is sixth in this ranking. There are 46
players that received points. A special mention to Tim Duncan who, at age 38,
is still producing amazing numbers while leading his team to another 50+
season.